I jerk awake frantically scrambling for my rifle and the MRAPs door handle. The ringing in my ears and tunnel vision only add to my confusion at being out in a forest laying flat on my back. With my head busting with pain and my ears ringing, I lay down and groan, trying to piece together what''s happening.... right, I was hiking.... I gingerly touch my head, finding my hair slicked back and sticky with half dried blood. "Fuck" I mutter I wipe my hands off on my heavy car hart hoodie before gently running my hands down my neck, and torso feeling for any obvious problems before checking them for more blood. With my hands coming back relatively blood free, I carefully sit up, ready to fall back down should I feel the need to. I manage to get myself into a cross legged sitting position my head cradled in my hands with elbows on my knees. I sit up completely and grab the canteen off my hip taking a small sip and start scanning my surroundings noting an odd lack of pain in my neck as I do so. I spend awhile just scanning the forest around me sipping water as my head ache and the ringing in my ears decreases ever so slightly. Now that I feel stable I start to notice something odd. It''s June, but a lot of the trees look like they''re already well into fall. The yellows and reds that cause southern Appalachia to be plagued with city people on the weekends are in plain view. I notice the squirrel I shot laying a few feet down the slope from me. I cautiously stand up and pause to see if I will keep my feet. Confident I won''t swoon I grab my squirrel and put it into my dumpsack. I check through my gear doing a quick inventory to make sure nothing came un stowed. I take a minute to look at my compass and study the mountains around me before scratching my head. "When all else fails, follow water." I mutter as I set off down the mountainside following a wash. I carefully pick my way down the mountain puzzled by how open the canopy of the forest is. I''m being forced to stay in game trails due to dense thickets of wild plums, service berries, blueberries, and to my great joy hazelnuts. I can''t help myself but fill my dump sack and pockets with nuts cracking several open with my Leatherman to check for worms as I go. As i follow various game trails down the mountain and across small creeks, I come across patches of Persimmon and pawpaw that are just out of season to my great disappointment. After a few hours of following these game trails, I''m getting more and more confused. I haven''t seen any sign of humans, and there''s aloy more evidence of fire than I''m used to seeing. There''s no litter. there are no sounds of traffic in the distance anywhere, no old logging roads or mining sites. Just untouch forest swarming with life. It''s not long before I lose track of how many deer I spook. I even come up on a bachelor group of three tom turkeys as I crawl out of an extra dense laurel thicket. When I come to a huge windfall tree, I sit down a minute to rest and look to see where the sun is in the sky to get an idea of how much daylight I have left. I judge I have about two hours of light left. Which is less than ideal given how hopelessly lost I am. I''ve hiked my land and the national forest around my cabin every day for three years. Ever since I got out of the hospital, and nothing looks familiar, I don''t remember ever seeing a hazelnut in the wild. Let alone thickets of them. Shrugging, I start to put my hand down on the forest floor to stand up when I nearly put it on the hateful husk of a chestnut. Standing up, I look around, and it doesn''t take me long to see that I''m standing in a grove of chestnut trees ranging from saplings to ancient monarchs of the forest 3 and 4 feet thick. My hands start shaking as I look at the impossible sight around me. The stories I heard from my pawpaw of his dad taking him out with mules harvesting literal tons of chestnuts to sell at the rail head. He told me about how they died out through his life and how blessed we were with the lone survivor tree he planted in the yard. I remember when I was in high school when men from the state came out and collected cuttings and seed from our tree, only for it to be dead and gone when I got home from Afghanistan. Through two back to back tours in hell, I never once broke down, I never once questioned God, but seeing that stump sitting in the yard surrounded by my mom''s hasta''s broke me. I collapsed in the yard, my mom and sister running to me as I curled into myself crying, over my pawpaw, my battle buddies, the full use of my body, and my tree.


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